The National Bureau of Statistics has said that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stood at N372.8 trillion in 2024, after the base year for calculating the figure was shifted to 2019.
The NBS, which made this known in a report published Monday titled “Rebasing of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)”, said the rebased GDP figures were arrived at using a base year of 2019.
“In nominal terms, the rebased GDP for 2019 stood at N205.09trillion, N213.63 trillion in 2020, N243.30 trillion in 2021, N274.23 trillion in 2022, N314.02 trillion in 2023, and N372.82 trillion in 2024,” it said.
“This revision represents a 41.7% increase in nominal estimates compared to a 59.7% revision in the 2010 rebasing exercise.”
According to the NBS report, the rebased nominal GDP at basic prices in 2019 reflected a 41.7% increase over the 2019 nominal GDP calculated using the old 2010 base year. This upward revision continued in subsequent years, with the rebased figures showing increases of 39.0% in 2020, 38.7% in 2021, 36.1% in 2022, 34.6% in 2023, and 35.4% in 2024.
The report noted that the real GDP growth post-rebasing is estimated at -6.96% in 2020 during the covid pandemic, 0.95% in 2021, 4.32% in 2022, 3.04% in 2023 and 3.38% in 2024.
Agriculture leads major sectors’ growth
According to the report, the agricultural sector led in growth, recording its highest rate of 2.66% in 2020. In contrast, both the industrial and services sectors experienced contractions that year, with the industry sector shrinking by 22.72% and the services sector by 5.37%.
However, by 2024, the services sector had rebounded with the highest growth rate of 4.43%, followed by the industrial sector at 2.80%, while the agricultural sector recorded a more modest growth of 1.69%.
The report further shows that the structure of the Nigerian economy has changed significantly with a rise in the share of agriculture and services sectors and a fall in the share of the industries sector in nominal terms, indicating a shift in the structure of the Nigerian economy than earlier reported.
“Analysing the 2010 base year nominal figures, in 2019 agriculture accounted for 22.12% of the GDP, while industry contributed 27.65% and services 50.22%. According to the rebased 2019 figures, the share of agriculture has risen to 25.83%, industry declined to 21.08%, while services increased to 53.09%,” NBS stated.
By ranking the GDP estimates at the 2019 base year, real estate ranked third displacing crude oil and natural gas to the fifth position.
This is due to better coverage of the real estate informal sector. The top five activities are crop production (17.58%), trade (17.42%), real estate (10.78%), telecommunications (6.78%), and crude petroleum and natural gas (5.85%) as against crop production (19.62%), trade (15.61%), crude petroleum and natural gas (8.60%), telecommunications (8.25%), and real estate (6.24%) recorded in the previous estimates of 2019.
The contribution of the informal sector to gross domestic product increased to 42.5% from 41.4% recorded previously.
What you should know
In January, NBS announced the rebasing of Nigeria’s GDP data, with 2019 selected as the new base year.
This decision, according to the NBS, was driven by the year’s status as a period of “relative economic stability” compared to other recent years, which were marked by significant economic shocks.
In 2022, Nigeria’s GDP hit N 274 trillion. IE $ 622 billion
This is the highest GDP figure ever achieved in Nigerian history under President Muhammadu Buhari.